


washing machine hearts (baby, bang it up inside)

by autoclaves



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (jonmartin), (timsasha), Established Relationship, Everybody Lives, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Getting Together, M/M, POV Outsider, Pining, Romance, in the spirit of tim stoker appreciation week as well, just some s1 team nonsense because i miss them, miss u everyday king keep thotting it up in heaven, tim and sasha & the jonmartin pining show!!!, very ambiguous timeframe.... or a human au? nobody knows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:07:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24047902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/autoclaves/pseuds/autoclaves
Summary: “We shouldn’t just bet on them. We should try toget them together.”“Yes!” Sasha cheers. It’s rather unclear if she’s specifically cheering him on, or just babbling into the empty air, because that’s the kind of thing Sasha does when she’s drunk.“Initiative…. y’know? Sash, we need to show initiative. Like they do onresumes.”“Yeah!”In his defense, it had sounded like a good idea while they were getting smashed at three in the morning. Lots of inadvisable things sound like good ideas while getting smashed at three in the morning, but now that they’ve committed to it, they can’t just stop.(Or: Tim and Sasha have plans. Also a spreadsheet, and an alarming number of doughnuts.)
Relationships: Martin Blackwood & Sasha James & Jonathan Sims & Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Sasha James/Tim Stoker
Comments: 64
Kudos: 494





	washing machine hearts (baby, bang it up inside)

**Author's Note:**

> what the fuck is an apocalypse jonny sims i'm gonna kill you. this is my city now and i have timsasha brainrot!
> 
> title: washing machine heart by mitski

“Twenty dollars,” Sasha says, dark eyes lighting up with an unholy kind of joy. It’s frankly alarming how gleeful she is about this. Yeah, the job is a little boring, they take their fun where they can get it, but _Christ._ Once Sasha is onto something, nothing stops her—it looks like this is what she’s onto now. She’s unhinged, and Tim likes her so, so much.

“Twenty dollars, c’mon, Tim, it’s for a good cause!” 

“Okay, no. I’m not spending money, I’m not spending _actual paper cash_ on this.” 

Somebody has to put their foot down, and since Sasha clearly won’t, it might as well be him. 

“Nobody said _that,_ you could Venmo me a little something—” 

“Sash, I have a stapler in my hand and I’m ready to bludgeon you with it—” 

“Spoilsport. You’re choosing now to be the responsible one?” Sasha makes a face at him, and then despite Tim brandishing the stapler, leans in to dart a kiss onto his forehead. Tim flicks her ponytail in retaliation. 

“I’m choosing now to be the broke one. We’re all broke. This job is fucking terrible and I’m not going to spend my meager wages betting on when our boss and our coworker are going to get together.” 

“Well, now that you put it like that, it sounds like an HR violation.” Sasha wrinkles her nose. “The betting part and also the boss part.” 

“Please, it’s not like Jon is actually the boss of anything around here. We don’t even have an HR department to complain to.” 

“Just Elias in his weird creepy office.” 

“Just Elias in his weird creepy office,” Tim agrees. They both spend a moment contemplating this. 

“Well, we should bet something.” 

“I have nothing to bet, I’m broke—” Tim argues, batting away her hand as it tries to poke him in the ribs. He manages to pinch the base of her pinky finger, and Sasha yelps. 

The whole thing is escalating into a rather undignified tickle fight involving full use of office supplies when Martin and Jon suddenly come into view. They’re talking about statements, something involving last Thursday’s case that Tim can’t quite make out. But the _really_ relevant bit happens when Jon holds out a sheaf of papers, and his fingers brush Martin’s as the file changes hands. Both of them blush like there’s no tomorrow. Jon ducks his head to retreat back into his office, leaving Martin standing there looking slightly dazed. Disgusting, truly, the both of them. 

“Disgusting,” Sasha says distantly, voicing his exact thought. This is why she’s Tim’s favorite. “Pining gives me hives.” 

Tim and Sasha stare judgmentally at Martin as he crosses the room back to his desk, spots of red still on his cheeks. Martin shakes his head at them minutely. _Stop,_ he mouths, and Sasha sticks her tongue out. 

“They’ve been doing this for months,” says Tim. “I can’t live like this.” 

— 

“We shouldn’t just _bet_ on them. We should try to _get them together.”_

“Yes!” Sasha cheers. It’s rather unclear if she’s specifically cheering him on, or just babbling into the empty air, because that’s the kind of thing Sasha does when she’s drunk. 

“Initiative…. y’know? Sash, we need to show initiative. Like they do on _resumes.”_

“Yeah!” 

In his defense, it had sounded like a good idea while they were getting smashed at three in the morning. Lots of inadvisable things sound like good ideas while getting smashed at three in the morning, but now that they’ve committed to it, they can’t just _stop._

— 

“Attempt one, mistletoe.” Tim crosses it off on their spreadsheet, then fills in the box with red. “Attempt unsuccessful. Although Jon did get very flustered, in a good way.” 

“I fucking told you,” Sasha says through a mouthful of doughnut. It’s the tiny, one-bite kind, and there’s powdered sugar on her sweater. “Timothy, it is the middle of May. _Why would you use mistletoe in the middle of May.”_

“... element of surprise?” Tim tries. Sasha rolls her eyes at him and puts on her glasses. There is now powdered sugar on the frames of the glasses, too. 

“Okay, attempt two. What’s attempt two? Is it the closet one?” 

“Attempt two is to lock them in an enclosed space. Like seven minutes in heaven.” He pauses. “Neither of them are claustrophobic, right?” 

“We’ll just put them in one of the empty storage rooms. Big, but boring enough that they have to talk about their feelings inside.” 

“Oh, well, that’s that settled.” Tim finger guns her. He feels like they’re both being far too blasé about this whole thing. 

— 

The next day, Tim asks Martin to get another cassette deck from the storage room in the third floor hallway, while Sasha makes up a tale about how the door’s hinges aren’t working and wheedles Jon into taking a look at them. She was put in charge of dealing with Jon because Tim is currently behind on paperwork and in hiding. Hearing an account of the lie she had apparently told him, Tim sorely regrets this decision. 

“The _hinges_ aren’t working, are you serious? What kind of—does Jon even know how hinges work?” 

“Well, he fell for it.” Sasha shrugs. “Went in to check them from the inside and everything. And then he got distracted and started talking to Martin, so I locked the door behind them.” 

Tim pinches the bridge of his nose. 

“You mean Jon voluntarily went inside the sketchiest goddamn storage room that, to the best of his knowledge, doesn’t have a working door?” 

“It really solves the problem of having to explain why said door is going to remain conveniently locked for forty minutes, don’t you think?” 

“No self-preservation sense.” Tim shakes his head fervently. “This man would be the first to die in a horror movie.” 

Two minutes later, the screaming starts. 

“Uh,” Tim says. 

“Uh,” Sasha repeats. 

_“WellIdidn’tmeanheshouldactuallydieinahorrormovie!”_ he yells as they glance at each other, wild-eyed. By the time they reach the storage room door and unlock it, Sasha hastily explaining that they’d heard the noise, was everything okay, Jon is already darting out past them and Martin follows a second later with a frankly giant spider cupped in his hands. 

Tim isn’t ashamed to admit he leaps back a healthy distance. Martin scowls at him. 

“Damn,” Sasha mutters. “We forgot about his thing with spiders.” 

— 

Attempt two, lock them in an enclosed space together, is crossed off and colored red for failure. Sasha gloomily goes through an entire box of mini-doughnuts. 

“Stress eating,” she mumbles when asked about it. “I’m exceedingly invested in this.” 

They treat Jon very nicely for the next few days, because they’re not _complete_ assholes and phobias are not things to fuck around with, but other than that, no new intraoffice developments occur. 

— 

Attempt three is bullying Jon into taking lunch breaks with them. 

The first plus side of this is that it gives Jon and Martin time to socialize like normal human beings instead of over statements and cold tea, or whatever it is they socialize about when Martin goes to see Jon and comes back all glowing. The second plus side is that if they time it right, it’ll be Martin’s turn to bring something in for lunch when Jon comes along, and it’s an acknowledged fact that his cooking is like seeing God. It can’t hurt, anyway. The two of them are far less prickly towards each other these days, but Tim privately thinks that Jon could definitely do with being more appreciative of Martin’s very many good qualities. 

The minus side is that getting Jon to do anything can be like pulling teeth. Tim takes one for the team this time, but mostly because Sasha promises to buy him coffee for the next three days if he does. 

So he drapes himself all over the man’s doorway and desk and generally acts a nuisance, until Jon, with an exasperated sigh, concedes the point that he should take lunch breaks with the rest of them for health-and-wellbeing reasons and also to promote intraoffice relationships. One particular intraoffice relationship, but nobody needs to know that yet. 

_success!!!!!!!_ He texts Sasha while walking to the breakroom with Jon, and she replies immediately with an incomprehensible string of emojis that he takes to mean affirmation. 

“Martin’s bringing something in from home today,” Tim manages to work into the conversation. “And he’s a great cook, you’ll love it.” 

“Martin’s… bringing something in?” 

“We have a schedule and it’s his turn,” he explains. “Sasha does Tuesdays, I do Fridays. Martin does Mondays and Wednesdays because he’s the best at cooking so he brings the best food.” 

“Ah,” Jon says. He can’t tell if that’s a good _ah_ or a bad one, but he’ll stay optimistic for now. At least Jon is coming, that has to count for something. 

In the breakroom, Sasha is already perched on the counter, heels kicked off and talking to Martin. The two are unpacking a series of tupperware containers spread out between them. 

“Hello, boss!” Sasha waves cheerily as Tim and Jon come in. 

Jon smiles back nervously. To his credit, it’s not awkward at all when he joins her at the counter and begins to help load the dishes into the communal microwave. 

“Martin, you cook?” he tries after a while, when the silence stretches on too long. Okay, that attempt’s a bit awkward and Tim winces. But, like, encouragingly. 

“What? Oh, yeah.” Martin studiously avoids looking at him as he opens the microwave to take out the first set of containers. “We have a rota for who brings in lunch.” 

“So I’ve heard. Oh!” Jon snatches back Martin’s hand as it strays too close to the turntable and Martin lets out a startled, reflexive exhale. 

“I—er. Don’t burn yourself,” he says sheepishly. “It’s a bit faulty, the turntable tends to get… heated. Really quickly.” 

“Jon, I use this microwave everyday. It’s fine.” And the tone would be admonishing in anyone else’s voice, but since it’s Martin speaking to Jon, it just sounds unbearably fond. 

“I know, I just—” 

Jon breaks off, but doesn’t let go of his hand. Martin brushes a thumb over his wrist with a small smile. Tim gags at the display. They’re both looking very sappy and lovestruck when the microwave beeps angrily, reminding them of the food still inside. 

With a yelp, Martin rushes to take it out and close the door. Jon turns sharply away, muttering a what sounds like a quiet obscenity under his breath. 

— 

Lunch is surprisingly… nice. Easy. They all sit down at the crowded table and eat pierogi and lentil pasta and savory muffins leftover from Martin’s baking experiment last night, a combination that shouldn’t have worked but does, somehow. Sasha talks about wanting to get some articles published. Martin and Tim continue a long-standing argument about what kinds of snacks the breakroom should have. Jon is quiet, but laughs like he’s enjoying himself and even debates the merits of salt and vinegar crisps with Tim. Again, it’s a nice lunch. They really should do this more often, all four of them. 

“What about Thursday?” Jon asks as they’re wrapping it up. Tim has commandeered the box of muffins and is cramming an entire one in his mouth while Sasha pecks at a doughnut, quietly egging him on. 

“Thursday?” Martin replies, questioningly, as the only person in the room qualified to answer who does not have baked goods in their mouth. 

“Tim told me you bring in food on different days, but nobody seems to be doing it on Thursdays?” He glances at Tim, who nods with enthusiasm. There’s not much else he can do at this point with his mouth so full. 

“We get takeout on Thursdays, usually. Sandwiches or curry or—you know, like that,” Martin tells him. “If you want to join us tomorrow, too, you can pick the place.” 

“Well, I was thinking—I could start bringing in some food? On Thursday? It might not be as good as the takeout, but I would feel bad just eating all your leftovers and not contributing to the rota—” 

“Oh. Oh! You’re… going to be eating with us now?” 

Jon flushes darkly. This time, Sasha gags, and Tim agrees with the sentiment. “If that’s all right with everyone?” 

Sasha smoothes out her face and gives him a thumbs-up when he looks around to her and Tim. “Of course. Today was fun.” 

Martin nods. “It _was_ nice, having you here. And—yeah, yeah, you can definitely start bringing food on Thursdays. That’d be great.” 

They smile at each other. Tim wonders if they know how they’re leaning into each other’s space as they talk, like a pair of closed brackets. Despite all his complaints about the pining, it’s endearing. 

Then Martin mumbles something about returning to work and the moment is broken as he practically flees the room. 

Sasha snatches the muffins back from Tim. “Stress eating,” she hisses as he valiantly tries to keep her from eating the last bacon-cheese one. 

— 

Attempt three is marked down as tentatively promising, although not fully successful. _Food as a love language???????_ Tim puts into the Additional Notes section. _Make sure Jon eats!_ Sasha puts underneath it. 

Attempts three point one and three point two are their efforts to get follow-up conversations out of Martin and Jon, respectively, re: The Microwave Incident and Other Associated Acts of Pining. The way Sasha says it makes it clear the phrase is to be capitalized like a title. 

Three point one is a disaster because as soon as Tim mentions the microwave, Martin deliberately spills an entire mug of (cold) tea on him and leaves “to get some tissues” while Sasha howls with laughter at the whole ordeal. Never let it be said that the man isn’t resourceful. So the plan is abandoned and Tim calls Sasha a traitor every time she tries to talk to him until she kisses him over her desk to make him shut up. All crimes are forgiven after that, so they turn their attention to Jon. 

Three point two goes much better, which is to say, Jon stammers a lot and doesn’t look at them directly and, through omission, basically admits that he has a genuine, honest-to-God _crush._

“I never said—” 

“Heard you loud and clear, boss,” Tim sings, walking out the door to a safe distance away just in case something gets thrown at him. 

“You’re not subtle!” Sasha yells over her shoulder as she makes an equally timely exit. 

— 

“So Jon is definitely into him, right.” 

“Sickening,” Sasha declares, and makes an annotation on the spreadsheet, which is coming along very nicely. They have color-coded graphs and everything. 

— 

Attempt four involves tape recorders and a lot of yelling, and upon reflection, neither of them are sure why they’d imagined it was ever a good idea to begin with. 

Attempts five through seven are… interesting, and never to be spoken of again. Tim thinks the last two might have been illegal. 

“Consolatory date night?” Sasha says, after that catastrophe is finished. 

“Consolatory date night,” Tim agrees, so they order pizza and watch _Doctor Who_ on his flatscreen. It almost makes up for the years attempts six and seven took off his life. 

— 

Attempt eight is completely improvised, and involves plying Martin with alcohol to admit his useless gay crush on their boss. 

(That’s exactly how Sasha has logged it into the spreadsheet as when he surreptitiously checks it under the table. Sasha truly does have the best names for everything.) 

They’re out drinking on a Friday night and the topic steers to romance when Tim starts describing, at length, the freckles of the cute barista at the cafe across from his flat. 

Martin throws back a shot at Sasha’s urging and grimaces. “Sash, this tastes like lighter fluid.” 

“That’s the point!” she sings back. “And he’s not cute at all, the barista,” she adds, jabbing a finger in Tim’s direction to punctuate the remark. She sounds truly upset about this. “Timothy, your taste in men is simply awful.” 

“Well, his taste in women is impeccable,” Martin placates tipsily, blowing a kiss at her. 

Sasha winks. “Thank you, love.” 

“What about you, Martin? Anyone got your eye?” Tim says quickly, half to turn the discussion into something productive and half to dissuade Sasha from making fun of his taste in men, which is _fine,_ thank you very much. 

“Oh, any nice boys you wanna take out?” Sasha continues, catching on. “Maybe a certain someone at the Institute?” 

“What, Tim?” Martin deadpans. “No, thank you, madam, you can have him.” 

“C’mon, Martin, your useless gay crush on the boss is not subtle.” She’s raising her eyebrows now, and the look on her face means nothing good. 

“At all,” Tim adds, and thumps his back as Martin chokes on his next shot. 

“Keyword being—keyword being _boss!”_ he protests when he’s stopped coughing. 

“No, keywords being _useless_ and _crush._ And _gay,_ too, if you like. Really, the _boss_ part is not the one you should be getting hung up over. The power hierarchy here is Elias and then everybody else, fuck that man.” 

_More alcohol,_ Sasha mouths, gesturing for the bartender while Martin groans at them. She has a point. Again, alcohol forgives many inadvisable things, likely up to and including admitting mortifying truths to one’s coworker-friends. 

— 

This plan backfires significantly because in a stroke of whatever the opposite of brilliance is, Sasha decides to match Martin drink for drink. Sasha is 5’2” and a lightweight to boot, so she gets drunk far too quickly to be of any use. Clearly, Tim has to do everything himself here. 

“Is she okay?” Martin waves a hand at her. She’s currently staring at the wall laughing to herself, which is pretty much on par for an inebriated Sasha. 

“She gets like that when she’s drinking. Hey, hey, hey, listen.” He snaps his fingers to get Martin’s attention. “What—what d’you think Jon’s like drunk?” The non-tipsy part of his brain thinks it might be good to get them started on the subject, and the rest of his brain agrees that that seems like a very solid idea. 

Sure enough—“Jon,” Martin says, and it’s almost a sigh. Every single part of Tim’s brain lets out a cheer _._ They’re getting somewhere. 

“Yeah, Jon,” he prompts. He takes another sip from his drink. 

_“Jon.”_ Then Martin launches into an impressively coherent tirade about exactly what he wants to do to Jonathan Sims and none of it even involves anything remotely scandalous, it’s just all about dates and doting and holding hands and _taking care of him._ That’s still frankly more than Tim cares to know. 

“So, uh.” He takes the opportunity to interject while Martin stops for breath, almost wheezing. “You like Jon and his… and I quote, ‘dumb pretty face’?” 

“Yeah,” Martin says vaguely. “Dumb, pretty. Mhmm.” And then he falls asleep right there and then, knocking three shot glasses off the table as he slumps over. 

The shot glasses shatter as they hit the floor. Various patrons start yelling, so Tim makes the executive decision to get the fuck out of there before they accidentally get the cops called or something like that. Sasha, given the fact that she’s plastered, finds this whole situation unbearably funny, and he’s reminded uncomfortably of attempt three point one and the Tea Incident as she giggles into his arm. 

— 

So that’s the story of how Tim wakes up on Saturday morning with a moderately raging hangover—he’d thought he was drinking responsibly, but a few too many cocktails had maybe slipped past his notice—and Sasha’s hair in his mouth. 

He spits out the hair. It smells like papaya shampoo and gin. “Sash,” he says, to make sure his voice still works. “Sash, Sash, Sash, wake up, we have a new development on Operation Jonmartin.” 

“Can’t we come up with a better name?” Sasha slurs from where she’s a lump beneath the blankets. It would be cuter if she wasn’t trying to insult his critical thinking skills. 

“I’m hungover, I don’t give a fuck. But Martin is _so_ gone over him, you should have heard him last night. We’re dealing with serious matters here—ow!” 

Sasha hits him with a pillow again. “Sleep,” she mumbles. “Martin can sort out… sort out…” 

She falls asleep before she can finish, and he never does get to know what she thinks Martin can sort out. Based on his track record, Tim sincerely does not believe Martin can sort it out, so he drags his ass out of bed and adds the result to the spreadsheet while searching for a blister pack of Advil. 

— 

“Tim, what does this _say?”_ Sasha groans, squinting at the edits he’d made under the Attempt Eight (Improvised) column. For some reason, the whole thing is written in a calligraphy font with neon blue highlight. 

“I was hungover,” Tim says weakly from where he’s lying prone on a pile of pillows. “It made sense to my suffering and hungover brain at the time. If anything, this is your fault for being a lightweight.” 

“Okay, well. I’m too tired to yell at you.” Sasha scowls and changes the text to something less eye-bleedingly ugly. 

“That is not an intimidating threat coming from someone who doesn’t even reach my shoulder in height.” 

She gives him two fingers. “So we can conclude that both of them, at separate times, have expressed some form of interest. We just need to get them to do that to each other.” 

“And therein lies the problem,” Tim concedes. “But we’re not doing the drinking thing again.” He turns over onto his other side, trying to fight off a burgeoning headache. Sasha pats his shoulder with an uncoordinated but sympathetic hand. 

— 

Attempt nine is an improvisation and doesn’t quite count, because it’s not an attempt to get them together per se, but Tim types it up anyway because it’s in the _spirit_ of doing so. Also, it’s quite successful, all things considered. 

Nine has to be improvised because Martin and Jon have a fight. Probably about something meaningless that Jon reacted badly to, causing Martin to react to his reaction badly, or vice versa, because neither of them can express emotions in a healthy way. Anyhow, Martin emerges from the office with his shoulders set defensively and won’t tell them what happened, so Sasha takes it upon herself to fix this. 

“Sasha, I’m about to start a statement, can this wait?” Tim hears him say as she slips into his office. Jon does look more tired than usual, and his hair is worryingly messy instead of in its usual bun. That’s all the observation he gets before she closes the door behind her. Their voices mute to a low murmur. 

“You okay?” Tim asks in an undertone to Martin. 

“He’s a stubborn asshole,” he says. “God knows why I—ugh.” 

“For what it’s worth, he looks tired today. And you know Jon is an emotionally stunted bastard on his best days.” 

“I mean, remember what he was like when we first started working together?” Martin says with a laugh. “He’s nowhere near that now.” A pause. “It would be easier if I could just move on. He’s not interested, why can’t I just get over it?” 

“Let Sash talk to him first.” 

“Sure, I guess.” 

“And listen, Martin. The two of you, you’re crazy about each other, we all know that. If he doesn’t do anything—his loss, right?” 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah, absolutely,” Tim confirms. He puts his arms around Martin from behind and squeezes. 

— 

Attempt nine’s success is proven when Tim comes back from a witness interview and sees Jon and Martin talking. He doesn’t mean to eavesdrop, exactly, but they’re _right there._

“—do care about you. I’m sorry. I know that was out of line,” Jon is saying, softly. 

Martin very hesitantly, very deliberately takes Jon’s hand in both of his. “You’re forgiven, of course you are. Thank you for apologizing.” 

They stand there like that, and Tim starts to feel too much like an intruder in this moment, so he backs away, but not before he overhears Martin’s quiet “I care about you, too, Jon. You know that, right?” 

This time, his text to Sasha actually warrants a full written _FUCK YEAH!_ instead of just a lot of indecipherable emojis. 

— 

And Tim thinks that’s the end of that; they’re done, they’re finished, Jon and Martin have finally gotten it together enough to admit they want to be disgusting and in love with each other, but it turns out it really isn’t. That afternoon, Jon accidentally trips right into Martin (no intervention needed at all, he manages to just _do that,_ like in a romcom or something) and there’s a series of embarrassed yelps from both of them as they spring apart and walk away as fast as humanly possible. They don’t look each other in the eyes for the _next two days._

“Are you kidding me,” Tim says. Sasha sulks behind her laptop and edits their graphs again. 

— 

“Lucky number ten,” Sasha calls out, once again opening The Spreadsheet. The Spreadsheet has now taken such a place of notoriety in Tim’s mind that he can’t help but capitalize the letters when he thinks about it. Too much time spent around Sasha, no doubt. 

“Our last few attempts were pretty good,” he suggests, making his way over. “And they’re definitely _aware_ of the whole situation now, which is honestly more progress than I thought we’d ever make. One of them will have to cave soon.” 

“Okay, so this one is. Er, drinking games?” 

“Skip it, I still haven’t emotionally recovered from that hangover last Friday.” 

Sasha obediently deletes the column. “Next one is the tea one. Getting Jon to make him tea. Because of the _food as a love language_ thing.” 

“Oh?” 

“I’ll take care of that one,” she says confidently. “It’s got to work, c’mon. We’re so close.” 

— 

Attempt eleven does not work. 

It fails because Jon makes the tea, puts it on Martin’s desk while he’s in Artefact Storage cross-referencing a particularly tricky statement, and then proceeds to seal himself in his office out of mortification for the remainder of the morning. Neither Sasha or Tim are there to run damage control, so this means that Martin comes back to an empty room and an unexplained and rather suspicious cup of cold tea after spending hours with creepy paranormal junk. Being both a sensible (paranoid) employee of The Magnus Institute and someone who would probably survive a horror movie, he doesn’t touch it. Leanne from Research, who drops in to talk to Jon for a while, had apparently seen him emptying the mug into a potted plant. Which, well. While Tim commends him on his impressive and possibly excessive paranoia, it’s really not doing them any favors right now. 

Attempt eleven point one is to casually mention to Martin that actually, Tim had seen Jon trying to make tea for him, wasn’t that sweet and had Martin gotten it? This is inconclusive because Martin just looks very, very embarrassed and refuses to say anything. But according to Sasha, they do talk afterwards, and both look happy enough, so Tim likes to think it’s at least marginally successful. 

— 

Attempt twelve is an unmitigated failure. Attempt thirteen—which Tim insists had been cursed from the start, given its numbering—is a slightly mitigated failure, but also potentially illegal in a way reminiscent of attempts six and seven. 

Attempt fifteen and its associated follow-up attempts are notable in that Jon and Martin hold hands again. But after that one, they seem to be strangely resistant to any and all further attempts, and no progress is made for a very long stretch of time. 

Sasha deletes the graphs, looking heartbroken. There is a significantly larger amount of mini-doughnuts being consumed during work now. Even Martin notices, and starts bringing her homemade glazed ones that she falls ravenously on while glaring daggers at the space between him and Jon. 

— 

They’re up to attempt twenty-one and Sasha is snacking on a croissant as she unpacks lunch—“The good doughnut place next to my place, you know the one, closed down,” she’d explained, and Tim had promised to take her out to that fancy bakery in Soho after work—when it happens. 

Jon and Martin whirl into the breakroom together uncharacteristically loudly, voices overlapping. Whatever they’re talking about is interrupted when Martin, laughing, grabs Jon to kiss him firmly on the mouth. And Jon just sighs into it, hands winding around him in familiar motions. 

Sasha drops the entire roll of kimbap she’s holding. 

Tim sympathizes, but he can’t afford to drop anything right now, because the container in his hands is made of glass. 

— 

Once they’ve cleaned up the floor and Sasha has passed the rest of the non-dropped food around the table, Tim jabs a spoon at the pair. 

“What? What in the fuck was that?” 

“We didn’t realize you were in here,” Martin says. He’s holding hands with Jon under the table. Tim is about to have an aneurysm, right there in front of God and everyone. 

“I cannot stress how much that is not an explanation—” he begins. 

“Since when were you two together?” Sasha interrupts him. She sticks her chopsticks in a slice of rolled omelette and eats it with a studied casualness, as if to disguise how she is, in fact, dying for answers as much as he is. She’s not fooling anyone. 

“Uh, a few weeks?” Martin says, looking at Jon for confirmation. 

“He’s right. Three weeks, give or take.” Jon, the bastard, nudges him affectionately with an arm, and the smile Martin gives him is incandescent. They’re together and _still somehow pining._ Unbelievable. 

Both eyebrows shoot up. “Okay, and why didn’t we know about this? Keep in mind I’m this close to siccing Rosie on you.” 

Martin starts laughing as he slides his chair closer to Jon’s. 

“Martin found your spreadsheet and he thought it would be funny,” Jon says, very quickly, as if to minimize the damage. Martin kisses his cheek. 

“It was very funny, and you thought so too.” 

“You found The Spreadsheet?” 

_“Three_ weeks ago, what attempt was that, Tim?” Sasha is already pulling out her phone in jerky, murderous motions. 

“Between eleven and twelve.” Jon is starting to grin now. It makes him look far too pleased with himself. “And we found the spreadsheet after attempt, what. Fifteen?” 

“You had a lot of ideas, I’ll give you that.” 

“Yes, the one with the tape recorders was truly inspired.” 

Tim is really going to have an aneurysm. “You knew the whole time? With all the failed attempts after that one—” 

“We were trying _so hard—”_ Sasha says. Her expression is going through every single stage of grief at once. 

“Sh, sh, sh, we’re very grateful, eat your food before it gets cold, etc.” Martin waves a hand as if to silence them. The look Jon throws at him is _so_ full of tenderness that Tim can only stare mutely. 

— 

Afterwards, Tim corners Martin in the office while Jon is recording a statement. 

“Are you happy with him, then?” He hooks his chin over Martin’s shoulder. “Do I need to give him the shovel talk?” 

“Jesus, you scared me,” Martin says, swatting his arm gently. “Yes, I’m happy, no, please don’t give Jon the shovel talk. I’m more worried for you than him, to be clear.” 

“Rude.” 

“Coming from you?” 

He does look very happy, so Tim lets it go. He’s glad for him, truly—Martin and Jon deserve to be happy together, even if it’s taken them this long to get there. 

— 

He and Sasha go to the fancy bakery in Soho after work to stock up on doughnuts. They even buy a cake that Sasha wants to custom-ice something embarrassing on. 

“Like, a _congrats on getting your bullshit together_ cake.” 

“You can’t ask the nice lady behind the counter to write that.” 

Sasha, of course, takes this as a challenge. She’s grinning as she marches up to the register and starts explaining the situation to the poor worker on shift. 

Tim puts his head in his hands and pretends not to know her. “I don’t know her! At all!” he calls out half-heartedly just in case anyone is paying attention. He likes her so, so much. That part hasn’t changed.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: @doctortwelfth


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